A new report has been published which highlights the need for more women in leadership and political roles in County Louth.
The authors of the report, Driving Equality for Women in Co Louth (2023), hope that it will help promote a strong community voice amongst women across Louth to help build partnerships and to advocate for lasting change.
The report is the result of collaborative engagement between Louth County Council, Louth Public Participation Network and Louth Local Development with over 200 women across the county, and captures the themes, objectives, outcomes and outputs of the participative process.
Starting in March 2020 Louth Local Development engaged over 100 women to collectively explore the impact of inequality on women’s lives in County Louth. Subsequent programmes during Covid-19 involved on-line engagement programmes with women to explore coming together and having a stronger voice.
Many of the women involved in the process were present at the launch of the final report in Monasterboice, which was facilitated by Geraldine Johnston from Boyne Communications.
Cllr. Paula Butterly, Cathaoirleach Louth County Council, who officiated at the event, noted that while Louth has “a comparatively favourable female representation at local level, more still needs to be done to achieve gender balance in our local political system.”
Louth County Council currently has 29 Councillors of which 12 are women, equating to a 41.4% female representation.
“As there are statistically more women than men currently living in Louth (97 men for every 100 women), it is clear to see that our local political system does not show a proportional representation of women to men. If this imbalance is not addressed, decisions and policies will continue to be made without full participation and representation of the communities we live in,” said the Cathaoirleach.
Joan Martin, Chief Executive of Louth County Council echoed these sentiments and referenced many other ways in which women can influence the decisions and policies being made at a local level by engaging in local public consultations on a wide variety of topics and issues.
At the launch of Driving Equality for Women in County Louth report were (from left): Dara McGabhann LLD, Sinead McVerry LCC, Cllr Maeve Yore, Cllr Bernie Conlon, Senator Erin McGeehan, Cllr Paula Butterly (Cathaoirleach,) Orla O’Connor, NWC, Joan Martin LCC, Cllr Marianne Bulter and Anna Ryan PPN.
She also noted that Louth Public Participation Network (PPN) with a membership of over 530 community groups, has access to local decision-making structures for community representatives to avail of.
These community representatives play a vital role in how Louth County Council collaboratively makes local decisions and policies, affecting how services within the county are planned and operate. The Chief Executive noted that Louth PPN regularly seek nominations for new representatives and with the local elections next year, encouraged those present to consider getting involved as a community representative to help shape the policies and decisions within the county.
Ann Larkin of Women’s Aid Dundalk highlighted the many challenges women face in relation to physical sexual and gender based violence, and gave the participants an overview of the services Women’s Aid offer to women in County Louth. She also noted the UN 16 Day Campaign of activism against gender based violence and outlined the many initiatives taking place in Louth as part of the 16 Day Campaign.
The final speaker at the event, Director of the National Women’s Council, Orla O’Connor, explained they are also part of the international movement to protect and advance women’s and girls’ rights.
Orla spoke about the upcoming referendum on Gender Equality and Care in the Home. She noted that our Constitution, contains restrictive language on women’s role in society, saying it is “outdated and carries a legacy of the mistreatment of women up to today. It’s important this is amended so that it reflects the value of care and everyone’s role in care right across our society.”
Closing remarks were delivered by SICAP Social Inclusion Manager Maeve Harkin, who spoke of the importance and value of collaboration and encouraged the women present to be more involved in decision making in a collaborative way so that all voices could come together and be heard.
The initiative and report was co funded by Louth County Council, Louth Public Participation Network (PPN) and Louth Local Development.
The final report is available to view on www.louthcoco.ie and www.louthlocaldevelopment.ie
